Stuff

This morning’s YouGov poll for the Sun has topline figures of CON 34%, LAB 43%, LDEM 8%, UKIP 7%, a nine point lead for Labour.

Yesterday also saw the revised recommendations from the Scottish Boundary Commission – published here. While the boundary review looks unlikely to be actually implemented the law still requires the boundary commissions to deliver a review by October 2013, so the process rolls onwards. The English commission is due to report its own revised recommendations next month.

I will put up updated notionial figures in due course, but the revised proposals in Scotland make very little difference – eighteen seats see changes to their recommended boundaries, but apart from around Dundee these are mostly minor tweaks, often to the detail of how divided wards are split. The Scottish Commission’s proposals were much better received than in England and received comparatively little comment or objection – largely it seems because they happily split council wards, so were not forced into strange decisions by the arithmetic of the ward electorates. There is no difference from the provisional recommendations in terms of how many seats the parties would have won in Scotland at the last election – it remains Conservatives 1 (no change), Labour 37 (down 4), Liberal Democrats 8 (down 3), SNP 6 (no change).

“larger and fewer urban constiturancies would just mean that some MPs are representing more people than pthers, and all because Tories want to continue to rule on a shrinking vote.

Labour’s vote is shrinking too but at least it is more widespread.

PR is the obvious solution, although you lose the constituency link.”

Does anyone also think that perhaps Labour gained more seats with a smaller percentage of the vote simply due to the power of incumbency (in very close races where it could make a difference) and due to strategic voting? Given that you guys have an independent redistricting commission, I don’t think that the seats are gerrymandered in a way to benefit Labour. Also, from my experience, when you’ve got a party that tends to do really well in dense, urban areas, it’s a lot easier to draw seats in a way that marginalizes that party. You can draw safe seats that pack in as many of those party’s voters as possible. When your vote is spread out in rural and suburban areas, it’s a lot easier to draw yourself more seats rather than less.

Colin, (I agree with crossbat)I’m LFC and I can honestly say I’ve stood on the Shelf, Kippax, Glwadys St, Stretford End, Shed etc (because I couldn’t get a ticket for the LFC “end”and in the 70-80’s felt no threat whatsoever – largely I believe that most football fans are like me and always have been – not violent.

Football hooliganism began to reduce with the introduction of cctv and seats. The certainty of being caught. The major players in the world of tribal hooliganism in the early 80’s were well-paid, well-dressed and early adopters of mobile phones and designer labels.Some even sought facial protection from their mates because they were due to present a TV show on the Monday Happy to provide more detail, but only if you contact me privately!)

Re the Rugby, I would have agreed with you were it not that those who want their kids to take part find themselves fighting the “in-crowd” where if you want a game for your child, you need to know the “right” people. Not very civilised or open to sporting endeavour.

There will be a few journalists now writing thought pieces that attempt to finesse their established views on Liverpool and football to take account of this week’s shift. Early indicators suggest to me that such pieces will attempt to drift the argument back towards the “well, what could they expect?” line. ie – the fault lay with the hooligans of the previous decades. Such arguments are feeble.

For a start, the pre-match police briefing would have been different from the “same as last year, no problem, good-natured crowd” briefing that actually happened.The fans’ reputation was for being manageable and good-humoured. That is clear from what has emerged aboiut the pre-match police briefing.

Second, the LFC fans had zero history of violence at stadiums pre and post Heysel 1985. Heysel was such an aberrance, there were no instances whatsoever of LFC fans invading pitches or attacking spectators in stadiums at all before and after Heysel.By the way, every single decent person on Merseyside felt and expressed shame and ermorse on behalf of those appalling thugs in spades afterwards, and still do.

Third, even if PCs were pre-disposed to thinking young men and women were drunk not suffocating, they were following orders from the control box. The orders were :

Do not organise arriving spectators into a queue

Do not make sure enough turnstyles were open to allow that organised queue to enter the ground before half time at the earliest

When the central, behind goal cages were full, do not close the tunnel – the only entrance to terraces that invited fanms with the word “STANDING” above it.

When the consequences of insufficient turnstyles and lack of queueing system lead to crushing (like 1980’s crushing on The Strand for a 92 bus!), open an exit gate without directing inflow to empty terraces at the side

When suffocating people tell PCs behind the goal that they have dead people amongst them, don’t do anything, tell the PCs to wait for an order, not take any action.

When LFC fans scale the fences and turn hoardings to use as stretchers, line a column of PCs and dogs across the half way line

Tell the 40 ambulances waiting outside the ground that the LFC fans were fighting, which made the stadium unsafe for ambulance crews to attend.

Tell the attending families that their dead sons and daughters were not theirs to hold, caress, but the coroner’s to defile.

Order the extraction of blood samples from all corpses to test for alcohol.

All corpses whose alcohol level was below the expected level to be computer checked for criminal history

PCs’ statements to be changed so that the Police could escape blame

The one thing that they did not do was to order individuals to back up Hackenzie’s lie. No-one corroborated The Sun’s libels.

Which brings me back to the point. We all knew at teh time that a massive failure by the Police was followed by a massive cover-up in which sensible journalists allowed themselves to collude with the greatest lie and libel – that people who watch football in their hundreds of thousands every week are as thuggish and culpable as the hundreds within our midst. No greater percentage than the thugs in general society (or on these pages!)

Even at the height of football’s troubles there were as many if not more arrests at Trafalgar Squatre on New Year’s Eve as there ever were at any football match pro rata.

Sorry for banging on, but I suspect public opinion will be subject in the near-term to journalists like Patrick Barcaly, (posh Liverpool) Ed Vulliamy and their ilk trying to push the cat back into the bag and re-establish Liverpool as a reasonable receptacle for the general public’s disdain

I did note the gender difference in attitudes to being “personally searched” by police, soldiers, or security personnel.

The response to “Private security personnel” seems to repudiate stereotype that women like those in uniform (or maybe just that some of the female respondents assumed that the the security people checking them would be female, while having a male stereotype of soldiers/police?)

I wonder what the respondents thought “progressive” meant in that set of questions?

The only ones thought to be progressive were
Boris Johnston
Richard Branson
Alan Sugar
Seb Coe
The Queen.

That would make an interesting “progressive” alliance!

Alternatively, “progressive” was thought to be a positive term and people attached it to people that they had some positive thoughts about, while “not progressive” was a negative to be attached to politicians (which may put into perspective what people see Boris as and their responses in the “Boris” poll) and anyone else associated with such low-life.

It does suggest that the question lacked clarity – and therefore, any usefulness.

Leadership Approval:
Cameron -26 (+2)
Miliband -27 (-5)
Clegg -61 (-3)
IIRC That is the lowest figure for Clegg – He has officially reached ‘as unpopular as Gordon Brown in mid-2008’ – with Gordon having a -61 and a -62.

As unpopular as Brown at Brown’s lowest point probably isn’t the greatest PR moment for Clegg and probably won’t help in the run-up to their conference.

Series of questions asked about policy :
“The government has suggested it may need to cut a further £10 billion from the cost of welfare benefits in order to reduce the deficit. Would you support or oppose further cuts to welfare benefits?”
Support – 36% (Con voters 69)
Oppose – 51% (Lab voters 78)
This actually surprises me as a finding – in the past hasn’t welfare cuts been a big vote winner? Perhaps it’s the £10bn figure?

“Would you support or oppose the following changes to tax, benefits and employment regulations?”
Temporarily abolishing capital gains –
Support – 25%
Oppose – 52%

Means test winter fuel allowances and TV licence payments –
Support – 52%
Oppose – 33%
Unsurprisingly, over-60s are the only group to oppose this measure.

Reducing employment regulations to make it easier to fire people –
Support – 36%
Oppose – 47%
This also surprises me – I would have expected large public support. Perhaps if it was phrased ‘Reduce red-tape to…’.

Maternity and paternity leave –
Is not generous enough – 14%
Is too generous – 30%
Is currently right – 48%

IIRC When public vs private VI has been asked before, the figures were radically different with a lot more Con support in the private sector and a lot less in the public (and the opposite for Lab). But I could be wrong.

Re “Re the Rugby, I would have agreed with you were it not that those who want their kids to take part find themselves fighting the “in-crowd” where if you want a game for your child, you need to know the “right” people. Not very civilised or open to sporting endeavour.”-this seems like a very unfounded & somewhat biased generalisation-you don’t provide the personal experience which produced it.

I have only one experience of the playing of rugby-my grandson took it up when he was ten. The local club ( to him) runs a number of teams for all ages and was very welcoming for new children. Tuition was great fun & very inclusive. I went along to watch sometimes & was very impressed. The area , the people & the ambience was working class ,with a very mixed ethnic background.

When you look at the polls over the last 6 months they have actually been pretty stable.

Perhaps this won’t change, until the GE is nearer or there is some major issue that affects the parties.

Could Cameron face a leadership contest in 2013 ? Not sure 46 Tory MP’s will write requesting one to the 1922 committee. So far they only have 14 letters from the usual suspects.

If the Trade Unions start widespread strikes over the next years, due to issues with pay freezes and pension changes, how will this affect Labour. If Labour are in favour of some of these government policies to help the countries finances, there will be conflict between Labour and the Unions. If the Unions withdraw donations to Labour, they would struggle to fight a GE. Also some Labour backbenchers would not be happy with Miliband/Balls. Challenge to Miliband as leader possible.

In regard to Nick Clegg, I am not sure that he would face a leadership contest, as I don’t think any senior Lib Dems would challenge before 2015. The Lib Dems will be facing many issues over the next year or so. e.g.challenges about changes to benefits system, Iran (?), Chris Grayling ( not very Liberal justice secretary (?), pressure on Vince Cable as business secretary.

Can’t see the polls changing much this year, with all parties facing issues.

AW
“It demonstrates people haven’t the first clue as to what “progressive” means, and treat it largely as a generic positive descriptor.”
Does that mean it may be a label that would benefit the right to appropriate?
Given that (generally) only left-wingers call themselves progressives and if progressive is seen as a positive label by the public, having it as a label dominated by the left would only benefit the left?

It wouldn’t be the first time a label has ‘switched sides’ for political descriptions – “libertarian” was until relatively recently a solely left-wing label (even if there is crossover between left and right libertarian ideology), but increasingly (thanks largely to American libertarian-capitalists) has become a term synonymous with right-wing politics.

It would probably frustrate the right of the Conservative party for Cameron to call himself progressive, but like ‘liberal-conservative’ it may be a label he could adopt for his policies with the general public.

There is an excellent article in today’s Irish Independent by Eamonn Sweeney about Hillsborough, that comprehensively unpacks the links between South Yorkshire Police and the government of the day. How the quid pro quo was organised, and how the vile lies were cooked and served by the right wing press. Required reading.

The man is not a public figure yet the media continue to treat him as though he were & considering he has not been a politician since 2008, when exactly will he be treated as an ordinary member of the public who happens to do a job that others are happy to pay large sums of money for ? IIRC he donates a huge amount to his Faith Foundation so accusations of greed seem to me to be borne out of jealousy & ignorance.
Ex-PMs all get huge amounts of publically funded money yet not a word is said unless its about Blair.

“…people haven’t the first clue as to what “progressive” means, and treat it largely as a generic positive descriptor.”

People may have looked at the range of decriptors they had been offered in the survey:

favourable/unfavourable
gereally progressive/generally not progressive
generally more positive/generally more negative
do admire/do not admire
respect a fair amount/do not respect a lot

…and come to the conclusion that YouGov were using ‘progressive’ (as in ‘tending towards improvement’) as a generic positive descriptor rather than a specifically political term.

To understand what ‘progessive’ means one could define the negative as, ‘moving in a backwards direction’, ‘illiberal’, ‘anti-Enlightenment’, ‘maintaining the status-quo’, regressive or some such. Then people would have a clue about YouGov’s thinking on the matter.

He said “publically funded” – ex PMs can claim expenses in connection with their duties as an ex-PM, up to a maximum of around about £115k a year. All four living former PMs claimed near the maximum last year.

Data from before 1997 isn’t held. I don’t think how much Heath and Callaghan used to claim before they died has been released.

I didn’t know that about ex-PMs (I assume any security cost is extra to that by the way). Given the row over MPs expenses, you’d think this apparently unscrutinised allowance would have more media interest.

I suppose in the distant past when past, when PMs simply retired, then a payment to fund a private office could to some extent be justified. But the modern pattern is very much to cash in, either for yourself or for some ‘Foundation’ – though those can also be a bit dubious.

If the question about Blair had began Tony Blair is no longer either a Member of Parliament or a Member of the House of Lords so does not have to make public how much he earns or who he works for. He does however receive £115,000 a year from the taxpayer for unspecified expenses [my bold], do you think the response would have been different?

“Yes, I quite like the governor cut + spectacles look. Granholm is a near comtemporary of my sister so I expirienced the full flowering of mid-70s fashion at first-hand (I can honestly say I was starting down a radically different sartorial path at the time).”

Hmmmmm. Well my two aunts who are also contemporaries have gone in the opposite direction. They’re both hippies and they’ve kinda stayed in the 1970’s look. Oh btw, you’ll appreciate the fact that that “fabulous” Sheraton is located in the Congressional District that your favorite Raul Ruiz is running for. (Or was, I have no idea if it’s still open, Palm Springs took a long downward spiral for a time).

“If not for the persistence of NYT and the Guardian in following up on the phonehacking cover-up, there is every chance that Murdoch would be doing his best to convert Sky News into a similar type of outfit by now.”

I’m not sure it’d be that popular. I think a lot of Tories would reject something like that. These FOX News reporters sit around all day spewing vile at anyone who doesn’t follow their extremely limited world viewpoint and just revving up anger among already bitter right wingers. When you look at the teabaggers, It’s like the right wing equivalent of the Militant. That’s what FOX promotes and coddles. Somehow I don’t think too many Tories would go for that.